I had all-over liposuction to fit into my bikini
Charlotte Copley, is an office manager from Cambridgeshire. She had liposuction on her tummy, thighs and back before her honeymoon last summer.
'I'd stopped exercising and started to comfort eat after the break-up of a relationship when I was 23. At 25 I met my husband, Andrew, at a friend's party and as our relationship progressed, I got into the habit of eating the same size portions as him. A year later we were renovating our new house and I was in denial about my size - I was spending all my time in baggy tracksuit bottoms, which hid my growing waistline.
'I tried Atkins for six months, but I didn't lose a pound - I get dishearted with diets very quickly, and if I don't lose any weight in a few days, I reach for the chocolates. To make it worse, Andrew had been dieting with me for support and had lost three stone!
I desperately wanted to lose weight so I could wear a bikini on our honeymoon in Tenerife coming up in four months, so I went to the doctor for help. He said I wasn't overweight enough to be given medication, and suggested I keep a food diary. I knew it wouldn't work, and it didn't. So I was prepared to take drastic action.
I'd seen pictures in magazine of women who'd transformed their bodies with liposuction and I'd presumed you'd have to be really desperate to resort to that. But time was running out; I had to lose weight for my honeymoon, so it soon became the only option.
'I took the plunge and booked a consultation at Linia in Huntingdon. Mr Aslam, the surgeon explained that he would make small incisions in my skin and insert metal tubes called cannulas through which the fat would be removed.
Andrew was really worried about me having surgery; he kept saying he loved me as I was, and didn't want anything to go wrong. But he could see how miserable I had become, and once we talked it through he was 100 percent supportive. I waited until the last minute before telling my mum, so she couldn't talk me out of it. No one else apart from my best friend, knew.
'On the day of the operation I watched as Mr Aslam marked up the areas to be operated on with a pen, and I started to panic. I began to worry that I might not wake up after the op and although I was desperate to be slim, I was also terrified.
Andrew had to work, so I went into theatre alone. The operation took approximately two hours, and over four litres of fat were eventually removed from my body!
'When I came round about two hours later, with Andrew by my side, I felt shaky and tearful. Although my body was still swollen and covered with dressings, I could immediately see I was much smaller, and despite the pain all over my lower body, it felt fantastic. The overall ache was like having fallen from a horse, or having really bad flu, and the areas of my body where the cannulas had been put stung like crazy.
'Every time I tried to sit up it was agony. I gritted my teeth and kept thinking about being able to lie on the beach in my bikini.
'I had to wear a pressure garment made of tight lycra to help my skin retract, but after six weeks I'd fully recovered, and only had a few tiny scars that looked like mosquito bites on my lower body. I immediately went out to buy all the clothes I'd been too afraid to wear before. Top of my list were bikinis - I bought five as I was so excited that I could now fit into a size 12 and the fat on my back that used to be so unsightly had gone.
'My wedding in the July went like a dream and I could hardly wait to go on honeymoon and get on the beach. In Tenerife, I felt amazing walking across the sand in just my bikini and sarong and didn't care who saw my body. It was like being a new person and there was no way I was going to hide anymore. I still compare my figure to other women's but now I secretly think "I've got a much nicer body than hers!"
